The Order of Books: Readers, Authors, and Libraries in Europe Between the Fourteenth and Eighteenth Centuries

by Roger Chartier

Book Overview

Between the end of the Middle Ages and the eighteenth century, what methods were used to monitor and control the increasing number of texts--from the early handwritten books to the later, printed volumes--that were being put into circulation?

In The Order of Books, Chartier examines the different systems required to regulate the world of writing through the centuries, from the registration of titles to the classification of works. The...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0804722676
• ISBN13: 9780804722674
• Release Date: February 1994
• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Length: 148 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Reading requires a little intellectual tolearance

I have to also agree the that the summary review of The Order of Books: Readers, Authors, and Libraries in Europe by vivesearthlink.net is unjust. Stanford has a history of publishing critical pieces on this topic and this work is up to its usual standards, even if it is not a usual history by normal standards. But to dismiss it with contempt because it doesn't reach down to your level or cover things in the way you expect is the, I think ridiculous of an author. There are plenty of books on literacy (Graff, for example ) that will do that in a much more straightforward manner. Give the author a chance to make his case and or don't read it at all.

Chartier's Order of Books--Terrific!

I want to respond to the obnoxious review that vives@earthlink.net made of this book. I found The Order of Books to be informative, exciting, lucid, and memorable. The implication that it is stylistically opaque or excessively academic is unjust and untrue. This book says a great deal about the history of reading and its social settings. Any student, bibliophile, or patron of libraries will enjoy and profit from it.